Greetings. I haven’t been around here in quite a while or two, but recently acquired AT Gold and … you know me (well, at least those that were around five years ago or so), I can’t get a whipping without writing depressingly about it. It's been that way since the good old People's Tactics days.

I got the game on Friday, and so far have struggled to come to terms with all the new rules stuff. And raw material management. Oh hell, I can’t manage raw materials for my life.

That said, we’ll drop right in. I like to play this game Civilization style, but have noticed that it is close to impossible to get a one-city start up with no existing railroads. (Hence the raw material problems, and don’t even ask how long it took me, cursing and all, to realize that you needed raw stuff to BUILD railroads in the first place) But you know me, I never learn my lesson, so:

Large map, 6 regimes (standard AI, since my abilities with this game are well out of shape), shroud (with a peek and some cosmetic changes to some overly meandering rivers and so on), stone age, and … well, the rest should explain itself.

I expect defeat by turn 3.

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Koningsbergen is the capital of the mightyful Germanic empire, which consists of - … well, Koningsbergen. Bordered by some form of water to the east and woods to the south and hills to the north, expansion was not an easy task to accomplish. But enough of the talking.

The first decisions were to form two infantry divisions from the 60 rifle we had available. One would to mostly westwards, the other northwestwards, to quickly get to our resources. First round production was changed to horses and engineers, and loads of those.

Good news: we actually had two mines for raw materials nearby.

Starting round 3 (July 1939) I received a message from the Shanghai Something, declaring war on us. Excuse me, have we met before? (blinks)

The mightyful Germans quickly conquered a nearby city, Valday, only to discover that the inhabitants refused to produce anything worthwhile for the mightyful Germanic empire. I am not amused. To the south, we found another, less annoying city, and the desert. Arf, don’t wanna go there, really.

September 1939 saw the Eastern Empire declare war on us, for no good reason. We discovered two more Russian cities in the north and west, and a German city in the southwest – but it was already occupied by some Japanese guys. Well, that’s rolling well…

By October, desperation was settling in. We were unable to discover any other friendly cities, and foreign borders were encroaching fast on us. A cavalry unit in the far west was gobbling up no-good Russian cities and discovered a suspicious looking goodie hut – errr, crate.

Situation at the end of October 1939. Those borders on the right are Eastern ones, so we can expect to find battle there. Resource-wise we could be off much worse, with five raws and two oil (almost) under control. But from time to time you may want to actually build some units, you know?

November: Only more bad news. Nippon captured the crate before we could, and we have met the Domain of Shanghai at the raw source in the desert. So, with pretty much every advance blocked now, we have only two cities to work with. Well, that’s great.

Our first research efforts were for mortars and machineguns, but since I need to get two bridges built here pronto, we won’t build such fine things for another two months or so.

That’s not gonna work.

December 1939: for good news, we added another raw and oil resource each in the west. There are more cities, all Russian. For bad news, the Shanghaians have armoured cars already. No fighting yet, but they are better positioned in any case.

January 1940: we have met the Sun Kingdom in the deep south, lodged between Nippon and the Domain of Shanghai. So far they’re friendly.

I can’t believe it, where are all the German cities? There gotta be more Germans in this world!

February 1940 brought us a newly discovered German city, unfortunately occupied by French guys with guns. Really, great. Really.

Fighting in the southern desert has shed the first German blood. We are clearly on the defensive here so far, since we have nothing to hurt them and their armoured cars, while we have that mine right at the border that Shanghai certainly would love to grab.

Our staff has prepared this lovely detailed map for your excitement. The light blue marks are Shanghai holdings, with that Sun city in between. There’s oil a few hexes to the east, but they have armoured cars and we don’t.

The broken line marks the railroad we need, but don’t have, to keep our boys supplied here.

Shanghai attacked, but lost two armoured cars in the process with light losses to our troops. We achieved a breakthrough on the coast with the 10th Cavalry and 13th Infantry Divisions, but inland our attack was bloodily repulsed by armoured formations.

In more bad news, Nippon controls another German city in the west (or is close to), and they are concentrating troops at Presseck, which is close to one of our mines and also close to our heartland. We have no troops to withstand an attack.

I also ordered some boats and used them to explore that water body, which ends a bit further east with an Arab city in French hands, so this map is basically a mess.

I am also trying to concentrate troops at the border with the Eastern Empire, which doesn’t go too well, either.

Our glorious German scientists discovered how to build armoured cars themselves now and a batch was ordered to be built in Koningsbergen (which is a neatly Dutch-ized variant of Koenigsberg…)

April 1940

In the south we had three divisions, the 1st, 6th, and 8th Inf.Divs., badly mangled by Shanghai, who tried to turn our right flank. Luckily, they don’t have enough mobility to decisively hurt us. We struck back and mopped up a few of their divisions, but we lack the oomph to drive them anywhere. This is the sector of I Corps, and all armoured formations will go here for the moment, since they won’t be of any use against the Russians in the northern woods.

Of the battered divisions, the 1st and 8th were rebuilt as our first armoured formations, the 6th was restocked with rifles.

In the northeast, our II Corps pushed Eastern units through the woods. They are not offering too much resistance at the moment. I am SO hoping to find a German city somewhere in there. The corps HQ currently sits on a spot where a harbor should make sense. Currently we are awaiting more engineers to become available to advance the railroad there, otherwise our push will starve to death soon.

The progress by II Corps in the east is steady, but excruciatingly slow. Losses were low. At least our own.

Shanghai puts up a much better fight in the desert, although there was only a minor skirmish on their turn. I am picking my attacks down here and only mopped up a weak division in the center of their line, gaining some more ground for deployment of my armoured formations here. Those are not ready to strike yet, unfortunately.

June 1940

Our 13th Infantry Division suffered a stinging defeat in the desert on an armoured attack by Shanghai. Our own armoured forces counterattacked and drove the enemy back again. But the pressure is definitely mounting down here.

To make things worse here, we are now at war with the Sun Kingdom, too, which is … complicating matters. We spotted another German populated city in the Nippon territory, which adds to the grief.

The II Corps has driven back the Easterns again, but has itself run out of supply by now. Engineers are now available to drive a railroad into the woods. At least we were able to occupy a mine deep in the woods, so we’re not completely pointlessly marching up there.

Now for experts: we are at war with Shanghai and the Sun Kingdom in the south. The Sun Kingdom also wars against Shanghai AND Nippon. They actually have driven an offensive someplace in the west, since I see a border with them in an area where I do absolutely not need any war going on. A III Corps HQ has been placed in the mid-west some time ago, but it has … “few” troops available.

I need to collect PP’s now to build some more powerful weaponry. Most of those hostile cities have devoted to recycled raw material so far, but I have enough mines to build those armoured cars, mortars and machineguns for the moment, and the railroad projects are mostly complete apart from the II Corps sector. I’m thinking light tanks (26), rifle II (107) and artillery (26) here. I currently have … oh, less than 26 PP.

July 1940

MAJOR TROUBLE. The Sun Kingdom is on the loose and attacks in the III Corps sector. We have basically nothing there. There are two infantry divisions there and more are hastily formed. So far, the Sun Kingdom has only infantry here, but if they manage to get to our railroad here, everything collapses.

The Eastern Empire has also marched up fresh units in the woods and the II Corps retreated a bit to shorten their overextended lines. The right flank is out of supply there, and I would hate to lose the mine again.

The I Corps achieved a victory along the lake shore with an assault by armour and cavalry. We are close to the oil field there, but Shanghai is massing troops against our right flank. An attack in the center of the line was brutally repulsed. Ouch.

The map – green circles in the southeast show objectives in our war against Shanghai. Yellow circles denote German cities in Nippon territory. And those Sun Kingdom armies came out of nowhere, even for Nippon, who doesn’t seem like it’s able to defend there.

By the way, I have a strange question. Why does the diplomacy report show seven regimes? (blinks confused)

II Corps front was quiet and we did not attack. The right wing is still badly supplied there.

I Corps continued it’s successful drive along the shore, breaking up the right wing of the Shanghai army there. We get into a position to attack the oilfield and for a drive on the mercenary base on the French border. With our limited production capacity, any infantry will help.

III Corps sees major scrambling to collect troops.

We built a tank factory on the lake, north of Hildesheim. It will supply I Corps with jeeps and armoured cars, then switch to light tanks as soon as we have researched them. It took all PP’s there were to get that factory down this month.

Good news of the month: in the far northwest our borders are still auto-expanding and we should get another mine and city (Russian…) next month, if the Japanese don’t cross our ways again.

September 1940

Really bad news on most, maybe all fronts. At first, at least.

I Corps’ position at the oil field was assaulted and broken up by masses of militia. The left wing was almost cut off, but we conducted a counterattack after a masterfully conceived plan (by me of course, who else could master my skills?), and not only were the militia thrown back, but the 1st Armour, 13th Infantry, and 32nd Infantry Divisions stormed right into the oil field! The 27th Armour, 30th Infantry, and 31st Armour Divisions then broke the Shanghai line in the center, isolating about seven divisions, mostly infantry, but still powerful, between our lines and those of the Sun Kingdom.

Elsewhere, the situation is dire. The III Corps conducted a disastrous attack against the Sun Kingdom, and the II Corps’ situation is unchanged.

We also had some supply shortage, as my overproduction from earlier in the year was more quickly consumed than I anticipated. (So much for masterful plans)

Map of the I Corps sector. It will be time soon to break it up into two corps, and to get the railroad extended. Dark green shows our masterful assault, light green the next objectives.

Next steps: defend well in the II and III Corps sectors. Get some research in, and meanwhile pound Shanghai as long and hard as possible. We should be in a position for a drive on Almar and the gun factory (while we can not actually build any big things that shoot stuff…) By the way I researched light tanks after that pic was taken.

Oh, and most important: read the manual, I have no idea what I’m doing here.

Once again bad news, another counterattack by Shanghai, and the oil field was lost again. Of course, our I Corps conducted a counterattack themselves, retook the oil field, but was not able to completely rebuild the line. There are also some strong Sun Kingdom formations in the south that are rather worrying to us.

III Corps has now sufficient troops to contain the Sun Kingdom. The Japanese are also moving against them and they could be defeated before too soon – who will take their city will have to be seen. It’s pretty worthless anyway.

Production currently focuses on light tanks, armoured cars, as well as infantry, infantry, infantry, and PP.

I’m also fearing Nippon’s troop concentration at our heartland and have begun building a IV Corps with three green infantry divisions that will be held ready to defend the woodlands in the area.

November 1940

Defeat! The pressure put up by the Domain of Shanghai at Almar has crushed I Corps’ left wing. The 10th Cavalry Division was isolated at the border with The Republic, but was able to hurry back to our lines since the Chinese didn’t reach the coast of the lake.

Our attack this month regained the oilfield and we entered suburbs of Almar, but there remains a strong formation of Shanghai to the north of the oil field which we can’t get rid of.

No major actions elsewhere. The III Corps is slowly advancing. Slowly with lots of O’s.

We have researched basic artillery now. With light tank production rolling at 2-3 formations per month, we want the same amount of artillery, and I think one or two big batteries could help a huge amount at the Almar front.

The 1st Tank Division was overwhelmed by Shanghai and decimated, which is not really good news. We were able to rebuild it this month, but lost our drive. The I Corps was able to consolidate it’s position, and they eliminated the pocket of isolated Shanghai troops, but this establishes direct contact with the Sun Kingdom, so things could go either way…

The Sun Kingdom has built a tank factory right in the middle of mayhem in the southeast. Conquering it would allow us to build massive amounts of rolling death, but our oil supply can’t cover the demand already.

II Corps front is quiet, as it seems like neither us nor the Eastern Empire wants to attack in the thickest of woods.

Things are getting really sticky at Almar. The flanks of the forces were attacked by Shanghai, the left one held, but the right one was beaten back. A counterassault was repelled and we have suffered considerable losses. I can’t bring my armour into position properly either. Hrmgz….

The III Corps also conducted another futile and costly attack in it’s sector.

The II Corps remains quiet. Maybe too quiet?

Forces as of January 1941 (denotes highest research level, but not all formations may be at that level, as commented on): 1,130 Rifle II (over 90% obsolete) 55 Cavalry II (all obsolete) 24 Mortar 43 Machinegun 149 Staff 120 Engineer

Those filthy Shanghaians tried to cut off the armoured formations and the infantry divisions glaring at Almar, but couldn’t seal the bag there. While the I Corps was able to beat back these attacks on this turn and deal severe casualties to Shanghai, this delayed our attack on Almar for another month.

III Corps was finally able to clear the northernmost Sun Kingdom positions and to improve it’s lines.

Light tank II and mortar II were researched.

March 1941

Let’s march. (Poor pun of the century)

We have our first artillery formation ready to bomb Almar. Shanghai has rolled up a bunch of new, small units. Killing with numbers, eh?

I Corps is able to hold it’s position, but does not advance at the moment. I wanted to break through to the southeast, around Almar, but they don’t let me at the moment.

The other fronts are quiet. The quietness in the sector is too spooky. I have sent some artillery up there so the Russians get a small pounding at least. (It was a very small pounding)

If things go well, we will assault Almar next month. And take it, of course. Oil reserves should suffice to keep the tanks rolling for a few miles. I have four tank divisions down there by now, plus two armoured car divisions.

April 1941

Things did not go well. Our halfway encirclement of Almar was broken up by Shanghai again. But this time we still meant it. While infantry assaults opened up the woods and plains to each side of Almar, a massive assault headed by the 25th Infantry and 47th Tank Division took Almar for Germania and the tanks drove on to capture the gun factory as well. The Shanghai defenses are broken up completely now and we should be able to conduct a drive along the lake again to the northeast, where they still hold a mercenary base.

That attack alone ate up over 20% of my 8,300 oil stock. But I made an investment this turn to improve two of our secure oil fields to level II, increasing monthly output from 2,000 to 3,500.

Other fronts remain quiet. The western territory of the Sun Kingdom tries to take Memmingen from Nippon, which would only please me – quickly sweeping in after that would give me another German city to produce in.

So apparently, tanks can’t move through the slightly greener fields that aren’t fields, which foils all my plans for the Almar region. My infantry is not strong enough to continue down south. The drive along the lake to the Republic border is not without it’s problems, either.

We continued our drive on the mercenary camp. Not much else has happened. I'm watching how the Sun Kingdom and Shanghai are clobbering each other down there. At one point I will need to split I Corps in two, at least. The IV Corps in the heartland is slowly built up and I build another railroad there to improve supply in the area.

"...the slightly greener fields that aren’t fields...." those would be "paddies" or ricefields, heavy armoured vehicles don't like them very much Impassable for tracked units, however there is a workaround and you need your trusted engineers for that; first you take the hex and send in the engineers to build a railroad. Done. You can also use those fields as a defense line against enemy armour, as the AI is pretty poor when it comes to building railroads through these fields.

We suffered only minimal losses in some skirmishes during the AI turn. This gives us the liberty to do stuff on our own now.

First of all, we moved our tanks out of the suburbs of Weichang in the southernmost part of the front (not a good place for tanks to be in the first place). Then we eliminated the Sun Kingdom pocket around the tank factory and took possession of said factory, but it won’t produce yet.

The other fronts remain frozen, but we have prepared for an attack on Douala, that Sun Kingdom city in the west.

There have been three new corps HQ’s created, V, VI, and VII. One of those will be sent do the far west, where we have zero protection at the moment, since the Nippon border stretches all the way up to the map edge. And Nippon is friendly. So far. The other two will be used to split up I Corps into manageable chunks once we have taken the mercenary base and have solidified a border at the river.

By now, we have some serious problem with production. Since we have only two cities for both supply and new units that aren’t tanks or guns, supply is not necessarily abundant and we also have a hard time producing large quantities of fresh troops.

Medium tanks are researched.

August 1941

The Eastern Empire gets a bit more active in the northeast, trying to get around II Corps’ right flank. We have some reserves in the area, so we are not in trouble. Yet. Still no actual fighting up here.

III Corps stormed Douala, but losses were quite harsh. There are still a lot of Sun Kingdom troops around, so the fighting here is not over. I had hoped for them to take Memmingen to then take it myself, but they could not get past Nippon into the city.

I Corps has isolated the mercenary base, but a first hasty attack was beaten back. The map shows the future separation of the three corps down here. I Corps will get most of the armour eventually, for obvious reasons. VI Corps will need the most artillery support.

We have researched fighters and divebombers, but can not actually free production capacities for them. Engineers will have to build at least one factory for this. Currently I’m still building that railroad in the heartland, one engineer division is building infrastructure with the I Corps, and the third has been busy upgrading mines.

The Almar front was very active between turns, but two Shanghai assaults were repulsed by I Corps.

I Corps will be broken up now. The left wing was already split off completely with a river front secured and the opponent beaten back. This is the VII Corps. The VI Corps will convert over the next few turns, while mobile formations shift west into the desert.

Minor skirmishes elsewhere. II Corps has solidified it’s right flank again. We research Staff II, build an aircraft factory, and grow increasingly scared of the Japanese presence next to our heartland.

All Shanghai attacks were beaten back again with losses about 2.5:1 against them.

This turn we were even more conservative than before, making a few consolidating moves. But there is still stuff going on. I Corps collects armour to conduct a strike in the desert early next year, preferably in January. More units at Almar were switched over to the VI Corps meanwhile.

There is also trouble brewing. I’m running out of infantry now, as well as transport capacity. At fault is, of course our miserable homeland production capacity. I have scores of armour sitting around, but can’t move them efficiently to the front (although I may miss something, for convenience I collect all production in the SHQ). Of course, producing trains and stuff worsens the infantry problem. Luckily we get the mercenary base online now, so we can at least add those.

December 1941

More attacks repulsed, this time with 4:1 losses against Shanghai.

No major attacks, and only few minor attacks, since I’m preparing for I Corps next thrust. The January date for the offensive has been pushed back to March, we need more preparation time here.

Apparently the mercenary base is treated as Chinese, specifically, which conveniently makes it entirely useless to me. Yeah, great, right what I needed. That same mechanic of people-specific locations is the EXACT reason why I dropped this game when Gold came out. Argh!!

As I see it, the only way to improve production would be to attack Nippon, but there is no way Germania could survive that.

Shanghai pushed back VI and VII Corps in several locations. They keep throwing waves of human bodies at us until some stick somewhere. The VII Corps’ counterattack was repulsed with ugly losses, the VI Corps was able to push back the enemy, who had encroached on Almar from the south.

The III Corps has eliminated the remains of the Sun Kingdom in the area.

War against Nippon would be suicidal. War against the Republic would most likely be, too. Those are the holders of the only other German cities I know of. This is really frustrating. But with my production I'm not able to advance one foot against the Chinese.

I'd recommend sending production directly to the combat HQ's that are going to use the units. It requires more micromanagement on the production side, but your units get to the front lines a lot quicker.

I'd recommend sending production directly to the combat HQ's that are going to use the units. It requires more micromanagement on the production side, but your units get to the front lines a lot quicker.

Usually I'd vote against that, but seeing the desperate situation you managed to get yourself into... I say sent them greenhorns straight to the frontlines. They start with a lousy 10 Exp but even Light Tanks with 10 Exp are deadly against soft targets... so they get up to 40 real quick. Sure your frontlines are in shambles, ( which is exactly what we like about you ) that is you play like Rommel... faster faster ever more deeper into the abyss without looking for some sort of defense line or communications line or whatever. Worked well in France and N- AFrica but not against Vic and his AI+ When you cover too much ground early in the game the AI usually will shred you to pieces. Also the wooded terrain in the North East area is a really difficult terrain to take, meaning you need lots of Inf and loads of Artillery. I'd go real slow there.

Oh and take a look at your Raw... you're outproducing it with 80 points... that go absolutely nowhere. The max you can produce is 240 points, anything more just gets lost, doesn't get produced.

ORIGINAL: Josh Oh and take a look at your Raw... you're outproducing it with 80 points... that go absolutely nowhere. The max you can produce is 240 points, anything more just gets lost, doesn't get produced.

Since my two cities don't produce raw-y stuff at the moment, nothing gets lost. All the tanks, artillery, planes etc. come out of factories.

I've run into a roadblock here. It's impossible to get more production without attacking Nippon, and that is suicide. The last time I fired up the game, I fell into a clueless stare, then closed it again.

ORIGINAL: Josh Oh and take a look at your Raw... you're outproducing it with 80 points... that go absolutely nowhere. The max you can produce is 240 points, anything more just gets lost, doesn't get produced.

Since my two cities don't produce raw-y stuff at the moment, nothing gets lost. All the tanks, artillery, planes etc. come out of factories.

I've run into a roadblock here. It's impossible to get more production without attacking Nippon, and that is suicide. The last time I fired up the game, I fell into a clueless stare, then closed it again.

I think Westheim has lost yet.

Lol that happens to me when I fire up one of the larger scenarios of WitE. It's the contrary with ATG, there were many times when I thought my position was untenable, but I just kept on playing thinking to myself better go down in flames then not play at all. So even in very tough conditions (like having only one city and that's the only one source for Raw too...) I still managed to win... it just takes a few hundred turns or so.